What are we fighting for in Afghanistan?
The Obama Administration says it is a "war of necessity."
Supporters of the war often cite the menace of the Taliban and their cruelty to women especially.
But no one presents the goal or how it could be reached.
What is happening in Afghanistan?
The people there and the people in Pakistan complain of our drones flying overhead and how they often kill civilians.The government could not hold a fair election recently.
The lack of a strong connection between the government on whose behalf we fight and our own government is troubling.
The U.S. faced this problem when it supported the nation of South Vietnam in the early 1960s. The people did not trust their leaders. According to James Douglass' book JFK and the Unspeakable, President Kennedy vainly looked for an elected government that would ask the United States to leave. It never happened.
The lives of our troops, the support we give and the money we spend for war should never be without conditions. And we have now had eight years to spell them out to the Afghans.
What would happen if we called our troops home from Afghanistan?
We would hear of the viciousness of the Taliban and their ill treatment of people there. This would be very much like the scare tactics that supporters of the Iraq war have used.
Who benefits from continued war in Afghanistan?
The military leaders, whose job it is to fight.
The Pentagon, who can test new weapons and assert power in Washington.
The contractors, who make weapons for the military for a high price.
The shareholders of the military contractor corporations, who get more out of their stocks in wartime.
The politicians who use patriotism as a tool against those who do not see the war thee same way they do.
The nations who receive military aid from us.
Who loses if we continue with the war?
Soldiers forced to fight a war never fully explained.
Victims of disasters back here in the United States -- floods, earthquakes, fires, etc. -- these disasters are typically handled by local or federal government officials not nearly as dependent on contractors.
Afghanistan has been the graveyard of empires, like Great Britain and the Soviet Union. We no longer have the ability to fight wars overseas and maintain safety back home. Just ask the people of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Eventually, we will have to choose between a disaster over there and a disaster here.
